Justices Freeman, Thomas, Garman, Karmeier, and Burke concurred in the judgment and
opinion.

Chief Justice Kilbride concurred in part and dissented in part, with opinion.

This tort litigation has been through a trial in the circuit court of Cook County. The
plaintiff, Kathleen Lawlor, claimed that her former employer, North American, had
committed the tort of intrusion upon seclusion. Defendant North American counterclaimed
that she had breached her employee’s fiduciary duty of loyalty.

Beginning in 1998, Lawlor worked in North American’s graphic services group and
primarily sold customized corporate-branded promotional items, with her role being to
generate business. In 2005, she began working for a competitor that sold similar promotional
items. North American’s corporate attorney was asked to investigate whether she had
violated a noncompetition agreement, and he assigned a vice president to serve as a contact
person. A private investigating firm was retained and given Lawlor’s birth date, address,
home and cell phone numbers, and social security number. This investigation firm asked
another detective agency to use the information to obtain personal phone records, which were
ultimately forwarded back to North American so that it could inquire as to whether any of
the numbers belonged to its customers. Lawlor’s tort claim alleged a “pretexting scheme”
in which someone pretended to be her in order to obtain her private phone records without
her permission. North American counterclaimed that she had breached her fiduciary duty of
loyalty by attempting to direct business to a competitor while in its employ.

A jury awarded Lawlor $65,000 in compensatory damages and $1.75 million in punitive
damages. The trial court heard North American’s claim contemporaneously as a bench
proceeding and awarded it $78,781 in compensatory damages and $551,467 in punitive
damages. The circuit court also remitted the jury’s punitive damage award to Lawlor to
$659,000. In the appellate court, however, Lawlor’s $1.75 million punitive damage awarded
was reinstated.

In this decision, the Illinois Supreme Court recognized the tort of intrusion upon
seclusion, as the vast majority of other jurisdictions and the Illinois Appellate Court itself
have done. It also held, as had the appellate court, that there was sufficient evidence to
support the jury’s finding that North American was vicariously liable for the tortious conduct
of the investigators. As to the punitive damage award to Lawlor, however, the supreme court
held not only that it should not be reinstated, but that it should be reduced further to the same
level as Lawlor’s compensatory award, or $65,000, in view of the limited nature of the harm
done and the vicarious nature of the liability.

As to North American’s claim of breach of fiduciary duty, the appellate court had
reversed the trial court’s finding in North American’s favor, holding that it was against the
manifest weight of the evidence. With this conclusion, the supreme court agreed, stating that
the evidence was speculative.